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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Somebody's Wife Loves Him.....
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Polls: Tsai Down Big =UPDATED= TVBS says neck and neck
The initial rush has now evaporated and Tsai looks like the usual DPP candidate facing the KMT juggernaut. UDN and Apple both came out with polls this week. According to UDN, Ma now leads Tsai 45-27, changed from the 37-36 lead Tsai had less than three weeks ago. According to the Apple Daily, the gap is 53-31. In the latter poll, about 45% are satisfied or very satisfied with Ma, and 33% are dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.Last week I blogged on the Taiwan Brain Trust poll and thought that Ma couldn't have taken a giant upward bound in satisfaction in the last three weeks but the Apple Daily poll signals that he might well have.
TVBS Update: On the other hand, a commenter noted that the May 19 TVBS poll has Ma and Tsai at 45-44, respectively. Another commenter reassured that the prediction market at NCCU also has them neck and neck.
UPDATED: Comments say "no way!"
UPDATED II: My friend points out: "What happened was, Ma started campaigning."
Maddog sent useful links on the pan-Blue media, though Apple is not pan-Blue.
May 19, 2011 NOWnews article (title below):____________
Don't believe this UDN BS: 2012大選選情 媒體民調：馬英九45%、蔡英文27% http://tinyurl.com/5w3a596 #TheBoysWhoCriedWolf
Pro-blue surveys get it all wrong:
Flashback to 2006: "[Pro-Chinese KMT] media surveys about Taipei election all wrong" http://is.gd/PPYWf1
Another flashback to 2006: "[Pro-Chinese KMT] media surveys about Kaohsiung election all wrong" http://is.gd/ds4FHO
Talking Show screenshot:
Flashback to 2009: Pro-Chinese KMT surveys about Yilan election all wrong http://is.gd/EUqqgK
Talking Show screenshot:
Another flashback to 2009: Pro-Chinese KMT surveys about Taoyuan election all wrong http://is.gd/rFvG3A
TVBS poll vs. 2010 municipal election results (all via Taipei Times):
Nov. 7, 2010 survey by pro-blue TVBS said Chen Chu would get "41%" of the vote http://is.gd/gSt4TS Actual tally: 52.8% http://is.gd/SeHXtt
Nov. 4, 2010 survey by pro-blue TVBS said Wm. Lai would get "47%" of the vote http://is.gd/XQo58F Actual tally: 60.41% http://is.gd/QBIov1
Nov. 2, 2010 TVBS survey said Su Jia-chyuan would get "43%" of the vote http://is.gd/My2hkT Actual tally: 48.88% http://is.gd/acLYdg
Daily Links:
- Foreigners compete in a Taiwanese speech contest. Awesome. Via Mad Minerva.
- VOA program on Taiwan, links start here.
- AEI's Michael Mazza critical of Ma in Taipei Times.
- Kastner rounds up the fraying defense ties between Taiwan and the US. Not much you don't already know, but Steve Tsang has some good comments at the end.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
WHO Farce Reaches Next Level
The Ma Administration's response to the WHO flap reached a new low as the Minister of Health -- well, I'd like to say fired off a letter but I really don't know what verb phrase to reach for here. Anyway, somehow this marvelous communication was forwarded to its proper recipient, and was duly made public, where it immediately became the target of widespread laughter.
For it shows, more brilliantly than a PhD-length piece ever could, the Ma gov'ts contortions in trying to serve Beijing and get elected at the same time.
In the English translation, whenever the term "the nation", "our country", etc appears in the Chinese, the Minister substitutes "my" and "I" and "our". For example, the opening sentence in Chinese expresses the nation's utmost dissatisfaction with a policy that was no doubt negotiated by the KMT in the first place, in the English version, "I" am expressing utmost dissatisfaction. Similarly, down in paragraph six, "our nation's delegation" becomes "my delegation."
In paragraph two there is an interesting moment -- the term ROC is never used and the sovereignty of that nation is never insisted upon -- indeed, the author never names what nation he represents -- in English the writer refers to "the Department of Health of Chinese Taipei" but in Chinese the mysterious, never to be named nation appears as "Our nation's Department of Health". Taiwan appears a couple of times in the stock phrase "23 million people of Taiwan," as well as "Taiwan and its adjacent waterways and islands" and of course in the complaint itself. His signature says he is an official of "Chinese Taipei."
It is hard to imagine what the government was thinking -- did they not realize that anyone could compare the two letters to see how they handled the issue of ROC/Taiwan sovereignty and how they represented themselves to the WHO? Didn't any of the political appointees think of the coming election? Because it sure looks like they were stumbling over themselves to appease Beijing. Indeed, Ma himself, and his administration, often appear weak and floundering -- here was an opportunity to act tough at no cost, since the WHO isn't going to change its policy on Taiwan. Instead, they weaseled, and confirmed everyone's worst opinions.
Lost in this attempt to fog over what Taiwan is, the Minister is dead right on one point: the WHO is in violation of its own regulations in placing responsibility for the health of the Taiwanese with Beijing rather than with the Taiwan government (see paragraph 2). The WHO looks even worse for the wear.
Amazingly, a US official actually weighed in on the debate, even with a gaggle of Chinese brass in the US to re-establish mil-mil ties. Yes, the US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, had a few words for the WHO:
US Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius said yesterday that no UN agency has the right to unilaterally determine Taiwan’s status. Sebelius’ remarks came amid ongoing controversy over Taiwan’s designation in the WHO.We made it clear to the UN appears to be an oblique reference to the flap in 2008 when then-President Chen Shui-bian sent a letter to UN Sec-Gen Ban Ki-moon indicating Taiwan's interest in joining the world body and Ban erroneously responded that Taiwan was considered part of China by the UN. The US warned Ban that this was not the position of the United States nor other powers. Note that Sebelius' remarks are a version of the US position that the status of Taiwan is undetermined and that the issue must be settled peacefully -- kudos either to her for understanding this or to whoever briefed her. And thanks to whoever decided to permit her to say something.
“We have made it very clear to the WHO and I think the United States’ position is that no organization of the UN has a right to unilaterally determine the position of Taiwan,” Sebelius said on the sidelines of the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva when asked by press about the matter. “It needs to be a resolution that includes China and Taiwan in a discussion and we would very much welcome that road forward.”
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
China Stuff
The China Reform Monitor passed along some interesting stories in this week's edition:Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reports that the strengthening of Chinese competition in the global arms and military equipment market is the most serious threat facing the Russia’s military-industrial complex. “In the field of military-technical cooperation, Russia and China are focused on the same regional markets, large emerging countries keen to pursue a military-political line that is relatively independent of Western countries,” the report noted. On the other hand, however, “Chinese policy is giving rise to increasing fears among neighboring states in Southeast Asia, which provides Russian exporters with new opportunities.”The article noted that Myanmar had surprisingly chosen Russian fighters over Chinese jets, even though the junta and Beijing are reputed to be close. Meanwhile it noted that India and China are still confronting each other over the disputed Himal region:
In response to China’s rapid development of road and rail networks in Tibet, India will complete a network of military roads on its side of the border by 2013, India’s Border Roads Organization (BRO) Director, General S. Ravi Shankar said in comments carried by India’s Economic Times. About 63 percent of work has been completed on 27 roads in the northeastern Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and 12 more in Ladakh are already complete, he said. In response to China the BRO has undergone a restructuring process since 2007 and has purchased equipment that will allow it to build 5 km of roads per day in the inhospitable mountainous environment.Hopefully they will have the courage to connect the roads so that trade and travel can take place, and my intrepid friend Michael Fahey, longtime local cyclist now currently cycling at a few thousand meters in northern India, can enjoy another interesting route.
Finally, this report on Kazakhstan from the CRM:
In Kazakhstan the opposition political party co-chairman Azat, Bulat Abilov, has called on the Kazakh authorities “to suspend all the contracts currently in force with China, make them public and make all the loans attracted during the past two years - almost $20 billion - the property of the public.” Abilov said that the party would submit to the city mayor's administration a request to hold an anti-Chinese rally in Almaty on May 28 to oppose the “influence of China on the country's economy.” In comments carried by the privately-owned Interfax-Kazakhstan news agency, he said: “Chinese expansion, Chinese influence, Chinese capital and investments are increasingly penetrating the economy of Kazakhstan and over the past five years Chinese companies have virtually become owners of Kazakh oil resources.”Lessee.....look at the region -- China is the leading foreign investor in Iran and Afghanistan and is forging close links with Pakistan, to whom it is the leading supplier of military equipment (a move with obvious implications for India). With China busy expanding all across central Asia, the criminal stupidity of our Afghan policy should by now be clear: Washington is killing Americans and Afghans to make Afghanistan safe for Chinese expansion. It has to stop. Now.
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Daily Links:
- Mark Valencia has a piece at NBR entitled: Foreign Military Activities in Asian EEZs. Its language and construction is severely pro-Beijing: "Indeed China's increasing assertiveness and expanding spatial perception of its security needs conflict with ever more aggressive and intrusive U.S. military intelligence probes." The US is aggressive and intrusive, China is merely assertive. The euphemism there for territorial expansion, "expanding spatial perception of its security needs", is priceless. I've discussed Valencia's pro-Beijing constructions before here.
- At CSIS, Dave Brown has a sturdy Establishment summary of China-Taiwan relations, informative with a useful timeline at the end.
- Latest issue of Taiwan What's Up out.
- James Holmes on how maps of the PRC's missiles pointed at Taiwan can be misleading.
- With all the focus on Taiwan's drought and the Mississippi floods, extreme weather is whacking Columbia (11 months of rain), Alberta (drought + wildfires), China ("a severe drought along the Yangtze River region in central China has rendered nearly 1,400 reservoirs in Hubei Province temporary unusable") and other areas. No April before 2005 was as hot as this one.
- Jens Kastner in AsiaTimes on how Beijing might use a tourist boycott against a DPP Administration. I sure hope they do; it is exactly the kind of move that backfires.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
KMT affronts dignity of aborigines again
The Taipei Times editorial has the call:On May 4, Council of Indigenous Peoples Minister Sun Ta-chuan (孫大川) presented a report to the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) Central Standing Committee on ethnic development and autonomy for Aborigines. Saying that Aborigines had interbred with other ethnic groups, Liao Wan-lung (廖萬隆), a member of the committee, wondered whether it would be possible to discourage intermarriage between Aborigines and other ethnicities to ensure the preservation of Aborigines’ cultural heritage.I don't know if I'd characterize Ma's response as tepid -- he was probably stunned that anyone could be so vapid and didn't know what to say -- but Liao's suggestion reveals the way that, in so many Sinic minds, terms like race and culture are more or less interchangeable -- culture is something you are born with rather than something you can acquire, and you have it as a result of having the right genes.
When Liao finished, President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), who is also the KMT chairman, replied that individuals were free to make their own decisions about whom they fell in love with and married, adding: “I am sorry, but I cannot comply.”
It goes without saying that Liao’s proposal incensed Aborigines, but so did Ma’s reply. Anyone hearing such blatant racial prejudice would be angry, and would have reprimanded Liao for his bigoted comments right on the spot. Even though Ma did not support Liao’s suggestion, such a tepid response simply did not go far enough.
The sublime irony of this is that in many cases local "Han" people were once indigenes who decided to adopt Han culture, as my man Drew is fond of pointing out on our bike rides through "Han" fruit growing areas. Arguably, the difference between "Han" and "aborigines" is how they choose to identify themselves, since genetically the groups are quite similar.
Local aborigines responded with anger (my students said that a group of them burned an ROC flag). Aborigines are a longtime KMT voting bloc. What effect the recent incidents -- including one from Ma himself -- will have on that bloc remains to be seen, but my guess is that it will be business as usual among the nation's aborigine communities when election time comes round.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Compass Int'l Food and Music Festival in Taichung
Big festival in Taichung May 28-9:
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Compass Taichung International Food and Music Festival Saturday, May 28 at 1:00pm - May 29 at 10:00pm
Art Museum Parkway, Taichung. 美術綠園道
Central Taiwan's biggest independent (non-government funded) live music festival, and biggest food festival possibly in Taiwan, is back for our 8th year!
Last year we had around 60 vendor booths, and likely we'll have more this year--with even more of Taichung's dining and nightlife scene represented.
第8屆康百視台中國際美食音樂節來囉！
18個樂團要讓你體驗中台灣的魅力！超多各式各樣獨特的世界佳餚將會刺激你的味蕾！這場盛會是中台灣第2大(由民間團體主辦最大)的年度音樂饗宴。希望可以在這場專屬台中的派對上看到大家！
5月28和29號1 pm-10 pm於美術綠園道盛大舉行
18 Great Bands/16個樂團
Saturday May 28th/5月28日, 周六
1pm: Nick Fothergill
2pm: Native Space
3pm: San Jiao Mao
4pm: Mike Mudd and The Silence
5pm: Dirty Skies
6pm: Moss
7pm: 3 Day Bender
8pm: .22
9pm: Dr.Reniculous
Sunday May 29th/5月29日, 周日
1pm: Andy Goode
2pm: Reigndear
3pm: 2 Acres Plowed
4pm: The HandKnife Club
5pm: The Ever So Friendlies
6pm: Reider
7pm: The Briegel Brothers
8pm: Zion Express (formerly Awesome Shit, Semicon)
9pm: Wailin' Soul
+Oriental Fashion Show across the street on Saturday at 4:30. 國際傳統婚禮展演 周六4:30
+Afterparty Party Bus on Saturday Night. More details to be announced soon. 隨後派對周六晚上
If you are interested in getting a vendor booth this year, please contact me at cds@taiwanfun.com, compassdonovan@gmail.com or 0928 313 225
如果你今年也想要有個自己的攤位，請寄email至我的信箱cds@taiwanfun.com, compassdonovan@gmail.com或是打0928 313 225
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Blog Stuff
I pruned a lot of old dead blogs, left some just because I liked them. If anyone knows of new blogs or blogs I don't list, please let me know.
Blogger has made some big changes in recent weeks -- I've held off commenting on them but after several weeks of blogging with the new functionality I've decided the "upgrade" is detestable. When I blockquote something, for example, and then hit ENTER to create a line, Blogger puts in a whole new set of [blockquote][/blockquote] that makes even more space. After I change the color of a quoted block of text Blogger also puts in needless color commands in the empty lines, creating unnecessary spaces between paragraphs and which have to be hand-pruned. Etc. On the whole the new blogging functions are clunkier and slower. Further, the new functionality doesn't give me the all-important ability to make tables -- I still have to input them by hand. Why?
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Video of WHA officials rejecting a Taiwanese passport
Ma claimed that at the WHA Taiwan and China were equal yesterday:
President Ma Ying-jeou yesterday said that the health ministers from Taiwan and China are on equal footing at the World Health Assembly (WHA).Obviously not. ADDED: Don't miss this good analysis of the WHO flap in the Taipei Times.
Ma's comment came as a clarification after a leaked World Health Organization (WHO) document shows that Taiwan is listed as a province of China.
A letter sent out by WHO Secretary-General Margaret Chan last September to WHO members referred to Taiwan as “Taiwan Province of China,” according to a report appearing in a local Chinese-language newspaper.
In response, President Ma explained that Taiwan's minister of health will receive equal treatment as his Chinese counterpart at the WHA meeting, which will be held in Geneva, Switzerland on May 16-25.
UPDATE: The offending memo from here. It is an internal document that helps members describe how to refer to the nations of the world. Since it says UN policy is to annex Taiwan to China, this obviously begs the question of the existence of similar documents issued from places above the WHO's head:
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Monday, May 16, 2011
Daily Links, May 16, 2011
BLOGS:
- Drew chronicles our leisure ride to the port, Gaomei, and the rice fields along the Dajia River.
- A South Taiwan getaway from Michael C.
- Laorencha, Jerome K, and Letters from Taiwan on the recent outbreaks of KMT racialist constructions of Taiwan and its people.
- Part IV of Kevin's musings on Taiwanese females, cross-posted at LoveLoveChina.
- Danshui expands, history recedes....
- A-gu points out China's threat should the DPP win the Presidency or the Legislature.
- David reviews the 2-28 museums in Taipei.
- The gov't needs policy to support MRT profitability.
- I just discovered the solution to the fertility issue: Make every year a dragon year!
- Abortion skewing gender here, as I've discussed in the past. Juxtapose this headline with the one above, and we can look forward to a bumper crop of boys next year. What could their parents have been thinking? The ratio is so skewed that the Health Ministry is going to look at certain areas of Taiwan on suspicion of sex selection abortions....
- Is Taiwan delaying payments on US-acquired weapons. Everyone denies it.
- Ma goes after youth vote....on a bike.
- Yet another fire at a Naptha cracker in Taiwan
- Ma vows to make East Coast catch up with the rest. Wait a second....hasn't the KMT run the east coast like, since, forever?
- Taiwan gov't slaps back at Amnesty International for complaining about the treatment of foreign laborers here. Amnesty's Taiwan page.
- The world is flooded with Euros and Dollars and Taiwan's NT is appreciating to a 13 year high. What should the central bank do?
- WantChinaTimes, the pro-China propaganda rag, points out that water prices are absurdly low.
- Public and private agencies don't bother to hire competent English editors; everyone knows that. The result is again, this.
- Former Dutch ambassador building online database of Dutch period. Great!
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Controversy over the new MOE curriculum on homosexuality
I linked to this letter in the Taipei Times yesterday and abused its author mildly for being a homophobe, which Readin in the comments correctly chastised me for. The letter itself is rather poorly composed and contains, as I pointed out to Readin in the comments, contradictions and issues that are common in such fact-free thinking -- the kind of thinking that once wanted to prevent women from being able to write letters to the editor and blacks from marrying whites.But the back-and-forth did get me wondering about what exactly the policy was. Anyone with experience of the educational system here knows that it abhors controversy so it didn't seem likely to me that the policy takes any kind of strongly controversial stance. The Taipei Times reported a couple of weeks ago on the "controversy" caused by the curriculum:
“The contents of the material are very controversial and the ministry would set a very bad example for kids if they are misguided,” Chu told a press conference at the legislature. “The ministry should not put the material into use until all questions about it have been clarified and both teachers and parents are fully prepared for it.”The response from the MOE actually followed the classic government pattern of saying that the issue was not substantive disagreement but merely the Ministry's failure to communicate. This was exactly the stance that Ma and the KMT took on ECFA, for example, and is a great face saver in the face of fundamental disagreement.
Chu was unhappy that the material attempts to explain to students from fifth grade up about different sexual orientations, while also telling students how to discover their own sexual orientation.
“Some of the content in the curriculum may better fit high school students,” Taipei City Teachers’ Association chairman Chang Wen-chang (張文昌) said. “As a professional teacher, I think the content is inappropriate for elementary and junior high school students.”
Union of Taipei Parents’ Associations president Lin Hsiao-yi (林曉儀) agreed with Chang.
“We’re not opposed to [discussion] of the gay issue or the ministry’s curriculum. As a parent, I just think that elementary school kids are too young to learn about it and putting it on the curriculum could confuse them,” she said.
Chu, Chang and Lin called on the ministry to revise the material and postpone the implementation of the curriculum.
Ministry of Education official Ko Chin-wei (柯金尉), who represented the ministry at the press conference, said the purpose of teaching about diverse sexual orientations was to allow students to learn to respect the rights of different people from a young age.
“Teachers and parents are worried because they do not fully understand what it is about. We will put more effort into communicating with the groups so that they can better understand why we are implementing this curriculum,” Ko said.
One key motivation for the new curriculum is the constant bullying that takes place in Taiwan schools over all sorts of issues, gayness being a prime one. Activists observed:
Taiwan Adolescent Association on Sexualities secretary-general Hsu Fei-kai (許斐凱) said diverse sexual orientation at schools should not be overlooked and discrimination against gays was a serious problem in school.See that last paragraph, and note that the attacks on the curriculum are, as usual, overblown. There was an excellent commentary in the Taipei Times on the curriculum "controversy."
“Not long ago, a high school lesbian couple committed suicide because their relationship was not tolerated by the school, their classmates or their families,” he said. “If we don’t teach our kids that everyone is equal regardless of their sexual orientation, tragedies like this will just continue to happen.”
Hsu also accused lawmakers and some groups of exaggerated statements about the curriculum.
For example, media reports citing remarks made by lawmakers against the curriculum claimed that part of the education included teaching students how to wash sex toys after their use. “That’s not at all part of the curriculum,” he said.
In addition, many critics of the curriculum spoke as if there would be a separate class for sex -education, Hsu said.
“In reality, under the program teachers would only be asked to mention the importance of respecting people with different sexual orientations, whenever it’s appropriate,” he said.
The problem of anti-gay bigotry is not limited to school but shapes many things in Taiwan society. Because gays can't marry here my gay friends can't enjoy the kind of useful visa I have through my wife (see this USAToday article on the springtime of hope here several years ago, and enjoy the irony of gay marriage being accused of dooming Taiwan for lack of reproduction when today straights have gifted Taiwan with the lowest fertility rate on earth). A sad example: the other day a friend of mine told me about an acquaintance, X, currently in the hospital. X, an unmarried male in his thirties who we are fairly certain is gay, is grossly underweight, and suffers from pneumonia and Kaposi's. What would you diagnose, dear reader? But the hospital hasn't given him an AIDS test (that's one way to reduce expenses and keep the local AIDS rate down!). Essentially, X would rather die a painful, lingering death than out himself as a gay male to his parents.
It's the kind of world in which people would rather die than admit they are gay that the curriculum is aimed at.
ADDED: My friend comments:
As the family prepared to help care for the patient's anal blisters (a sign of HIV infection), the nurse implored them to be careful because he was "likely" HIV positive.
They have not given him an HIV/AIDS test. They continue to look the other way and treat him with steroids so they don't "violate his privacy". His parents shun him and he is being cared for by a few true friends. His boyfriend is unaware X may be HIV+.
It is the ignorance and intolerance of the straight community that makes these good people hide, live and die in the shadows with the feelings of abandonment, fear and shame. It is also the straight community that is truly fixated on how gays fuck than how they live and love.
The problems within the gay community; problems such as depression, anxiety and the effects of the silent battery of hate, can only find a solution when straight people can just quit giving a shit about who other people feel they should be intimate with.
Let everyone feel safe and protected to love. A government policy to support all kinds of people is preferable to one that promotes shame. It's not about the sex.
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
Taiwan Brain Trust Poll Outlier?
The Taipei Times reported on a Taiwan Brain Trust Poll (Chinese lang press release) that gave some strange numbers which called into question its trustworthiness....first the numbers on sovereignty...While 47.3 percent of the public think cross-strait exchanges over the past three years have not negatively impacted Taiwan’s sovereignty, 40 percent believe that there has been a severe erosion of sovereignty following the cross-strait exchanges initiated by President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) administration since 2008, according to a survey released by the Taiwan Brain Trust yesterday.Sorting through the spin, it shows that 40% of the population, roughly corresponding to the core group of light and deep green DPP supporters, thinks Ma has eroded the island's sovereignty. This is from a pan-Green camp think tank. It doesn't exactly correspond with my experience, but then my own experience is only selective and anecdotal.
The weirdness of this survey was signaled by its finding on Ma:
The poll, coming just days before the Ma administration marks three years in power, indicated that Ma’s approval rate stood at 40.2 percent, while his disapproval rate remained at 48.3 percent.Consider the recent TVBS and Global Views Survey Research Center polls from April, which I wrote about a few weeks ago:
Good news for the DPP as Ma's poll numbers, which peaked briefly in Jan, are appearing to return to their more natural level of 32.9%, as the latest Global Views poll indicates. Dissatisfaction with Ma is now at 56%. This is the third straight month of slumping numbers for the President, so perhaps we've established a trend. Similarly, the numbers from the TVBS poll from the first week in April were 30% satisfied and 50% dissatisfied...Surely Ma hasn't jumped 8 points in approval in the last couple of weeks. It seems that the sample used by the Taiwan Brain Trust polling company is out of synch with the rest of the nation.
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Daily Links:
- Homophobe afraid kids might catch Teh Gay has letter published in Taipei Times. Once again, we must ask why the letters section publishes such arrant nonsense.
- Forumosa users, Maoman wants you to take a short survey.
- Another hard hitting editorial on ECFA: numbers don't look good.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
WHO Dunnit?
The internal WHO memo on Taiwan has been in the news this week. The Taipei Times reported on FAPA's response to the revelations that China was controlling Taiwan's observer status at the World Health Assembly (Yay! We can observe an assembly!), the kind of thing that everyone was shocked, I tell you, shocked, to find out:The Washington-based Formosan Association for Public Affairs (FAPA) says that the disclosure of an internal WHO memo instructing its agencies to refer to Taiwan as a province of China has sent “shockwaves” through the overseas Taiwanese community.The truly sad part is that there was much bottom up pressure from other WHO nations in the developing world that have worked with Taiwan doctors for greater Taiwan participation in the WHO. But the KMT administration has handed over Taiwan's participation in the WHO and its various entities to China. I don't think anyone believed there wasn't this "Taiwan, Province of China" quid pro quo, but it is still nice to have confirmation of everyone's duplicity. Hopefully it will sway a few independent voters.
“The episode shows that the [President] Ma [Ying-jeou (馬英九)] administration has been deceptive and given the Taiwanese public an unwarranted rosy picture of the situation,” FAPA president Bob Yang (楊英育) said.
Dated Sept. 14 last year, the memo says that procedures used by the WHO to facilitate relations with Taiwan were subject to Chinese approval and that Taiwan “as a province of China, cannot be party to the International Health Regulations (IHR).”
In a statement distributed to the US press, FAPA said: “The information in the memo stands in stark contrast to the image presented by the Ma Ying-jeou administration, which emphasized that Taiwan’s observership — started in 2009 — amounted to ‘substantive participation’ and had come about as a result of direct negotiations with the WHO, without Chinese involvement.”
And it should also make you wonder.... since the WHO stuff was negotiated and then strenuously lied about, what about ECFA?
Meanwhile the KMT was attempting to push the blame onto the DPP for the use of "Taiwan, China" in WHO-related affairs....
Responding to Ma’s claim that the DPP administration condoned similar action, another DPP spokesperson, Cheng Wen-tsang (鄭文燦), said Ma “needed to take a look in the mirror.”This also highlights another issue in cross-strait negotiations: it is not Taiwan or even "the ROC" that is negotiating, but the KMT.
DPP lawmakers launched a fresh round of attacks earlier in the morning, accusing the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of masterminding an agreement between Beijing and the WHO that relegated Taiwan’s status to that of a -Chinese province, as evidenced by the memo.
DPP Legislator Gao Jyh-peng (高志鵬) said that a 2005 Memorandum of Understanding between China and the WHO, which referred to Taiwan as “Taiwan, China,” came shortly after closed-door talks between the KMT and Chinese officials.
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Daily Links:
- US expert warns of PRC economic trap. It's obvious what is going on, yet American analysts insist that it is a really good idea that Taiwan is being handed over to the PRC.
- Don't miss this Taipei Times editorial blast at Ma for patronizing the aborigines.
- Sinocentric explores Jay Chou and identity in the context of the Green Hornet movie.
- Back Alleys of Tainan, always a great topic.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Jrnl of Current Chinese Affairs Issue on Taiwan
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Table of contents: Journal of Current Chinese Affairs (1/2011)
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From: Petra Brandt
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs
OPEN ACCESS
Content alert: Issue 1/2011
“Whither Taiwanization?”
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Yoshihisa Amae, Jens Damm:
Introduction: “Whither Taiwanization?” State, Society and Cultural Production in the New Era
Yoshihisa Amae:
Pro-colonial or Postcolonial? Appropriation of Japanese Colonial Heritage in Present-day Taiwan
Lutgard Lams and Xavier Li-wen Liao:
Tracing “Taiwanization” Processes in Taiwanese Presidential Statements in Times of Cross-Strait Rapprochement
Jens Damm:
Taiwan’s Ethnicities and their Representation on the Internet
Tanguy Le Pesant:
Generational Change and Ethnicity among 1980s-born Taiwanese
Yin C. Chuang:
Divorcing China: The Swing from the Patrilineal Genealogy of China to the
Jacqueline Elfick:
Class Formation and Consumption among Middle-Class Professionals in Shenzhen
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Authors are invited to submit their manuscripts to the journal directly
through the web interface on
http://www.CurrentChineseAffairs.org/submission or by email to:
submission@CurrentChineseAffairs.org
--------------------------------
Petra Brandt / Editorial Management / Publications
GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies
Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien
Neuer Jungfernstieg 21 / 20354 Hamburg
Tel.: +49 40 42825-534
E-Mail: brandt@giga-hamburg.de
Internet: www.giga-hamburg.de
Journal of Current Chinese Affairs: www.CurrentChineseAffairs.org
Register to receive new online publications: www.giga-hamburg.de/mailinglist
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Thursday, May 12, 2011
Twister in Taipei!
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[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
Water rationing to expand -- expect shortages to become a permanent feature over the next twenty years
The government announced that it was expanding water rationing in Taiwan later this month as the island's reservoirs are scraping the bottom:The government is set to expand the scope of water rationing and prepare rain-inducing measures as it struggles to tackle the issue of dwindling water reserves.Taiwan is now in its worse drought in eight years. This is part of a long-term trend, as I noted in a post a couple of months ago. The Straits Times has a longer discussion -- the issue is of course the way humans are heating the global climate:
Minister of Economic Affairs Shih Yen-shiang (施顏祥) said yesterday that the government would impose a second phase of water rationing in parts of New Taipei City (新北市), Taoyuan and Hsinchu counties on Wednesday next week and extend the measure to Miaoli County, Greater Taichung, northern Changhua City, Greater Tainan and Greater Kaohsiung on May 23.
The first phase of water rationing was implemented on April 1 in northern and central Taiwan.
.....The last time Taiwan rationed water was in 2004, at the height of its worst drought. It lasted 21/2 years and affected the whole island.Of course, President Ma mouthed the usual nice words about Taiwan needing a long-term plan for droughts and floods, but in fact during the Chen Administration the DPP fielded a comprehensive land and water planning regime which the KMT controlled legislature gutted and turned into just another developmentalist program for spraying more concrete across Taiwan's landscapes.
Dr Wang Chung-ho, a research fellow at the Institute of Earth Sciences at Taiwan's top think-tank Academia Sinica, told The Straits Times: "We can't tell how long this one may last. But we're worried it may surpass even that previous drought." The phenomenon is likely due to global warming, he added, intensifying the frequency and severity of droughts in Taiwan over the past 40 years.
Ironically, Taiwan has one of the world's wettest climates, with about 2,500mm of rain a year on average. However, much of this flows right back into the ocean due to Taiwan's mountainous terrain and lack of water channels. Yet water tariffs remain unsustainably low.
In a commentary Tuesday (May 10), China Times said weather extremes caused by global warming are set to become the norm, yet Taiwanese are still "blissfully unaware" of the gravity of the situation.
"The government has named low birth rates as an issue of national security," said the daily. "The truth is, lack of water is a bigger problem than lack of people."
Water supply issues are intertwined with many other issues, from polluted rivers to land subsidence, but water is of course a key factor in Taiwan's attempt to increase its production of grain.
“The country's grain self-sufficiency rate now stands at 32 percent and the rate could be significantly raised to nearly 40 percent in 2020 by increasing domestic crop consumption,” said COA Minister Chen Wu-hsiung (陳武雄) yesterday in Taipei.Increasing grain production is an urgent necessity since rising petroleum prices over the long term gravely threaten Taiwan's food security. In 2008 when oil hit $120 a barrel Taiwan stopped importing sweet corn from the US and sourced it from China. Since China is also a food deficit country, this is obviously not sustainable. Long-term projections for climate change show that the grain producing regions of the central and western US are going to suffering from permanent drought by mid century (for example) and Taiwan can expect further declines in rain. Preparation now is urgently necessary.
In order to achieve the goal, the COA is drafting measures to bring more fallow fields back into cultivation, Chen added.
Chen made the comments during a conference aimed at developing solutions to Taiwan's “food deficit” and new approaches to food security in the country.
Water policy is also intimately connected to the construction-industrial state that has fueled domestic politics and KMT power for the last fifty years. A forward-looking DPP policy in this area can address both its political inferiority at the local level and help Taiwan as the world moves forward into its fossil fuel-driven Saharan future.
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Daily Links:
- Given second chance, a quarter of moms say they wouldn't have kids again. Why is this a shock? Does the reporter not have children?
- Letters from Taiwan on China's continued interference in Taiwan's international space.
- Taiwan's fraud rings move out into Asia.
- Al Jazeera video report on Taiwan's most famous swordsmith, a practitioner of a dying art.
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its sidebars for events, links to previous posts and picture posts, and scores of links to other Taiwan blogs and forums! Delenda est, baby.
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